Monday, October 6, 2014

Hidden Among the Hemlocks

In a wood off Valley Road,
on Lia Fail Way, to be exact, is a wondrous place, well known once but now
hidden. It may be the most well known yet now obscure place in all of
Greenwich. It is listed in the Connecticut State Register of Historic Places
and was part of this year’s Connecticut Open House Day.

The once lauded now hidden
place is the O’Neil Outdoor Theater, and it is the subject of a Greenwich Oral
History Project interview published in 1977. The interview, conducted by Nancy
Wolcott, was with Horton and Madelyn O’Neil, each with an interesting story to
tell.

Madelynn O'Neil

Horton O'Neil

Horton O’Neil, an architect
and son of David O’Neil, recounts the story of how his father and he came to
build the theater. David O’Neil was a lumberman by trade but an actor by
avocation, having played in productions of Shakespeare, Shaw, Galsworthy, and
others. During his years as an actor, he performed in several outdoor theaters,
an experience Horton O’Neil believes may have provided the inspiration for the
outdoor theater they would build together in Greenwich from 1934 to 1937.

The marble stage

His father’s dream,
according to his son, was to act in his own theater, for the love of it and not
for financial gain. Additionally, he hoped to give readings of his own poetry, known
as he was in the community for his poems, having published a book of poetry in
1918, A Cabinet of Jade.

The design of the theater,
which was Horton O’Neil’s doing, was unique, a marble outdoor amphitheater
designed to hold an audience of seven hundred, surrounded by junipers, yews,
and hemlocks. Rose-colored Tennessee marble was used for the pit and in the
pattern in the stage. The concept was of a pool in a forest, the concentric
tiers of steps serving as a series of echoes. Horton describes it:

The swirl pattern of the stage is Celtic…a design
that generated movement about a still center. The other Celtic motif was in the
Druid stones around the stage, consisting of five-ton marble monoliths, and in
the upright shafts in back of the auditorium.

The construction, a massive
undertaking, was done without bulldozers, any heavy machinery, or blasting. The
construction team consisted of one mason, one laborer, and two stonecutters
with credentials including work on the Lincoln Memorial and the Supreme Court
building in Washington D.C. Horton O’Neil helped with the manual labor as well
as being the designer and superintendent, along with his father, of the
project. While the theater was designed originally for dramatic productions and
poetry readings, the first event held in the completed space was with Quinto
Maganini and his orchestra before an audience of invited guests.

According to Madelyn O’Neil,
After World War II, the theater was used most effectively for

Young dancers on the marble stage

dance recitals. Trained
as a dancer, she had taught for many years and had become involved with the
Greenwich Academy where she was in close contact with jean Pethick, a teacher
there. As a result of their association, from 1949 to 1959, the theater saw
numerous well-attended (with as many as 550 audience members) dance
performances. The first of these was a lavish Midsummer Night’s Dream production with none other than a young
Jane Fonda performing as one of the fairies, according to Ms. O’Neil. Another
well-attended dance performance was created from Shirley Jackson’s “The
Lottery,” Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” accompanying the dancers in what must
have been a stunning performance.

In 1959 The Pied Piper of Hamelin was presented. Ms. O’Neil describes the
way in which the Piper very dramatically led the children off among the
hemlocks and into the surrounding woods until they were out of sight. An
appropriate ending to a ten-year period of creative, expressive dance
performances, it appears. The Pied Piper
was the last production mounted by the Greenwich Academy. In fact, the piper
might just as well have led the audience out, too, as he led the children away,
and turned off the sparkling outdoor lights that illuminated the theater while
he was at it.

In 1960 the neighbors, in
effect, put an end to further use of the theater for any type of performance.
With the help of an attorney, the theater was closed on a technicality. It lost
its “nonconforming use,” which it had enjoyed since it had been in existence
before zoning barring such use had gone into effect. The loss of this status
was owed to the theater having been out of use for a period of one year, which
it was during the war. Alas—no more O’Neil Outdoor Theater productions, no
poetry, or readings of Shakespeare, no music or dance or any kind. But the
Theater is still there, at least.

The O’Neil Outdoor Theater, transcript with Horton and Madelyn
O’Neil, by Nancy Wolcott, interviewer, 1977, is available through the Greenwich
Library’s Greenwich Oral History Project. The interviews are located on the
first floor of the library and through the project office on the lower level. (Photos from the Greenwich Oral History Project collection and courtesy of the Greenwich Historical Society.)